With the international break finally coming to an end, Arsenal have the chance to make it three wins in a row when they face Newcastle United this weekend.
The Gunners started the season with a couple of tough fixtures against Manchester City and Chelsea, and unfortunately couldn’t get anything from those matches. Nonetheless, they showed progress, and turned that into results with victories over West Ham United and Cardiff City.
Next up it’s a trip to St. James’ Park. Arsenal have Alex Iwobi available again after illness, but otherwise the squad is looking very similar to the Cardiff fixture in terms of injuries. Kolasinac, Maitland-Niles, Jenkinson and Koscielny are all still out, for the time being.
After correctly predicting Alexandre Lacazette’s first start of the season last time out, this time we’re expecting another of Unai Emery’s summer signings to get his full debut. Let’s have a look at our predictions:
1Goalkeeper and Defence
Unfortunately for Bernd Leno, it doesn’t look like he’s going to get a debut of his own just yet. Four games in and Unai Emery still hasn’t shown any signs of dropping his first-choice, Petr Cech, so it looks like the 36-year-old will get another chance on Saturday.
Nacho Monreal will start at left-back, since there are still no other options right now. Hector Bellerin should keep his place on the other side, particularly as he’s had a rest over the international break, unlike Stephan Lichtsteiner.
Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Shkodran Mustafi will continue their centre-back partnership, after starting the first three games. Rob Holding and Konstantinos Mavropanos will presumably get chances alongside Leno in the cup and Europa League games.